# Copying "Artist" to "Album Artist" in iTunes
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/copying-artist-to-album-artist-in-itunes/8890
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [September 3, 2009, 9:07pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/copying-artist-to-album-artist-in-itunes/8890 "2009-09-03T21:07:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mastavic](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/mastavic)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2009, 9:07pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/copying-artist-to-album-artist-in-itunes/8890/1 "2009-09-03T21:07:50Z")
Hello, I hope you are doing well.
I have several hundred songs in my iTunes library where the "Album Artist" field is blank. Is there any way I can copy the names from the "Artist" field to the "Album Artist" field easily? These songs are by different artists.
I am using Windows XP, Service Pack 3.
Thank you,
Vic
---
### Author:  [@mjcm](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/mjcm)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2009, 9:31pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/copying-artist-to-album-artist-in-itunes/8890/2 "2009-09-03T21:31:22Z")
Hi,
you can use the action 'Format Value':
Field: BAND
Format string: %artist%
Read this for more help.
[/t/967/1](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/967/1)
As always: Try it first on a backup of some of your music files
---
### Author:  [@gebak](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/gebak)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2009, 4:29am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/copying-artist-to-album-artist-in-itunes/8890/3 "2009-09-05T04:29:42Z")
Hi i have the same sort of problem. I want to copy the artist from the filename to the artist field but it won't work but i'm probably doing something wrong.
Filename is : 01 Johnny Guitar Watson - A Real Mother For Ya.mp3
Artist field is blank. So i want to copy only the artist from the filename to the artist field.
But how....
Tnx a million.
Gerard
---
### Author:  [@mjcm](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/mjcm)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2009, 4:40am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/copying-artist-to-album-artist-in-itunes/8890/4 "2009-09-05T04:40:29Z")
If the file name is:
01 Johnny Guitar Watson - A Real Mother For Ya.mp3
You select in Mp3tag
Convert - [Filename - Tag]
And as format string:
%track% %artist% - %title%
If you only want the artist then use as format string:
%dummy% %artist% - %dummy%
[https://docs.mp3tag.de/converters/import-tags-from-filenames](https://docs.mp3tag.de/converters/import-tags-from-filenames)
---
### Author:  [@gebak](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/gebak)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2009, 6:10am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/copying-artist-to-album-artist-in-itunes/8890/5 "2009-09-05T06:10:49Z")
Tnx a million/Enorm bedankt ! 😃
This works perfect/Dit werkt prima.
Gerard
---
### Author:  [@mjcm](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/mjcm)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2009, 6:12am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/copying-artist-to-album-artist-in-itunes/8890/6 "2009-09-05T06:12:41Z")
No Problem/Graag gedaan 😉
---
### Author:  [@bannate](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/bannate)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2009, 1:22pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/copying-artist-to-album-artist-in-itunes/8890/7 "2009-11-09T13:22:33Z")
Thank you for this, I think i have about 250 songs where this field is blank and its not really that necessary but I just get really annoyed with [Landlord Insurance](http://www.landlordinsurance.org.uk/) being blank, i'm very much a perfectionist lol 😛
So i guess i got a little bit of work ahead of me to change them all over ☹ lol
---
### Author:  [@garym](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/garym)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2009, 11:38am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/copying-artist-to-album-artist-in-itunes/8890/8 "2009-11-10T11:38:12Z")
> [@bannate](#):
>
> Thank you for this, I think i have about 250 songs where this field is blank and its not really that necessary but I just get really annoyed with it being blank, i'm very much a perfectionist lol 😛
>
> So i guess i got a little bit of work ahead of me to change them all over ☹ lol
why is this a lot of work. You can run this action on thousands of files at once with a click or two.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2026, 12:21pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/copying-artist-to-album-artist-in-itunes/8890/9 "2026-02-09T12:21:45Z")